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Faculty Working Papers

Torts

Environmental law and policy

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Three Obstacles To The Promotion Of Corporate Social Responsibility By Means Of The Alien Tort Claims Act: The Sosa Court's Incoherent Conception Of The Law Of Nations, The "Purposive" Action Requirement For Aiding And Abetting, And The State Action Requirement For Primary Liability, David A. Dana, Michael Barsa Jan 2010

Three Obstacles To The Promotion Of Corporate Social Responsibility By Means Of The Alien Tort Claims Act: The Sosa Court's Incoherent Conception Of The Law Of Nations, The "Purposive" Action Requirement For Aiding And Abetting, And The State Action Requirement For Primary Liability, David A. Dana, Michael Barsa

Faculty Working Papers

The ATCA could be a powerful tool to promote corporate CSR, especially in developing countries where local legal restraints are weak. But despite the good normative reasons why the ATCA should be used in this way, serious obstacles remain. The Supreme Court's ahistorical and incoherent formulation of the "law of nations" fails to promote the development of the ATCA in ways that would cover even serious environmental harm. Also, the federal courts' confused jurisprudence concerning aiding and abetting and state action creates too many loopholes through which egregious corporate behavior may slip unpunished. In order to overcome these obstacles, we …


When Less Liability May Mean More Precaution: The Case Of Nanotechnology, David A. Dana Jan 2009

When Less Liability May Mean More Precaution: The Case Of Nanotechnology, David A. Dana

Faculty Working Papers

The heart of the Article is an exploration of the possible role of common law tort liability in both encouraging and deterring voluntary, precautionary study of new products generally and nanotechnology products in particular. A key variable in considering liability's role as an incentive or deterrent to testing is the manufacturer's subjective assessment of the probability that any injuries from its product would be detected by the injured parties and successfully attributed to the product absent research by the manufacturer itself on the adverse effects of the product. Another key variable is the legal standard for tort liability, and specifically …


The Contextual Rationality Of The Precautionary Principle, David A. Dana Jan 2009

The Contextual Rationality Of The Precautionary Principle, David A. Dana

Faculty Working Papers

This article defines the precautionary principle (PP) primarily based on what it is not: it is not quantitative cost-benefit analysis (CBA) or cost-cost analysis of the sort we associate with the Office of Management and Budget in the United States and U.S. policymaking and policy discourse generally. In this definition, the PP is a form of analysis in which the costs of a possible environmental or health risk are not quantified, or if they are, any quantification is likely to be inadequate to capture the full extent of the costs of not taking regulatory measures to mitigate or avoid the …